For the Historical Food Fortnightly challenge 19 – Ethnic Foods, I made two Austrian desserts: Salzburger Nockerl and Kaiserschmarrn. Both recipes are original Victorian recipes: from the 1840s and 1850s. I’ve often made modern Salzburger Nockerl and Kaiserschmarrn, but I’ve never made the original historical recipes – so I was curious how they’d taste compared to the modern recipe versions. 😀

Victorian Salzburger Nockerl

Salzburger Nockerl is an Austrian dessert. Today, Salzburger Nockerl are a souffle made with egg yolks and whites, flour, vanilla sugar, and cranberry jam. But original Victorian Salzburger Nockerl were completely different: Victorian Salzburger Nockerl are small choux pastry dumplings with custard sauce. Below are three 1840s Austrian Salzburger Nockerl recipes:

Salzburger Nockerl Recipe

Make a choux pastry: Boil water, butter, salt and sugar. When boiling, stir in the flour. When still warm, beat in the egg and egg yolks.

Bring the soy milk-water (or milk) to a boil. Make small dumplings with two teaspoons and boil them for some minutes in the milk.

When the dumplings rise to the top, they’re ready.

Put the dumplings into a glass baking dish. Optional: Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Make a custard sauce with the remaining soy-milk-water, egg yolks and vanilla sugar.

Pour the custard sauce over the dumplings. Serve them immediately or put them for some minutes into the oven. The recipe says to put the Salzburger Nockerl into the oven, but it’s not necessary when they’re served immediately.

Salzburger Nockerl after some minutes in the oven

Sprinkle with sugar before serving (this is optional as the Salzburger Nockerln are already sweet enough).

The Victorian Salzburger Nockerln are delicious but quite unlike modern Salzburger Nockerl which are equally delicious. When I read the recipe, I thought the Victorian Salzburger Nockerl would take long and be difficult to make. But now after I tried it out, I can say: The Victorian Salzburger Nockerl take a bit longer than modern Salzburger Nockerl, but they’re not difficult to make.

Victorian Kaiserschmarrn

Kaiserschmarrn – Emperor’s Mess – is an Austrian dessert or sweet lunch, a shredded pancake named after Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria (1830-1916). Originally, Schmarrn was an Austrian poor man’s food, sometimes just made with flour and milk. But Kaiserschmarrn is more fancy: made with eggs, flour, cream and butter.

I tried out two of the above recipes, one is adapted slightly to make it dairy-free.

Dairy-free Victorian Kaiserschmarrn Recipe

175ml half soy milk and half water (you can also use milk)

100g flour

a pinch of salt

4 eggs

70g butter for the pan (I used ca. just half of the butter)

Victorian Kaiserschmarrn Recipe With Cream

160 ml cream

2 or 3 tbsp flour

a pinch of salt

3 eggs

butter for the pan

Make a thin pancake batter with milk (cream), flour and salt; then stir in the eggs. Melt butter in a skillet. Bake the Kaiserschmarren until golden brown, turn over and bake the other side until golden brown.

Then tear the pancake into pieces and sprinkle with sugar.

Both Victorian Kaiserschmarrn were delicious, and very easy to make – a perfect campfire dessert.

Hi, I’m Lina. I’m interested in historical fashion, I’m a DIY’er, I like to sew and try out new things. On this blog, I’m sharing free sewing, refashion and natural makeup tutorials with you, and write about costumes I’ve created.